Measurement of PFAS substances at Pituffik Space Base has shown levels that are 250 times above the EU’s limit values.
Water samples from it American military base in Greenland, Pituffik Space Base, has shown high levels of PFAS substances that can be harmful to health.
This is shown by a review of data on water samples from the website of the US Department of War, which Politiken has carried out.
The newspaper writes that PFOS, which belongs to the group of PFAS substances, has been measured at 1100 nanograms per liter of water. According to Professor Anders Baun from the Technical University of Denmark, this is 250 times the EU’s limit value.
– There is no way to explain away that the concentrations are far too high, he says.
PFAS is the collective term for a group of thousands of different fluorine-containing substances. PFOS is one of them.
According to the Danish authorities, the substances, which are difficult to break down, are suspected of being both hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic.
Professor Anders Baun assesses to Politiken that the presence of PFOS at Pituffik Space Base originates from the US military’s use of fire-fighting foam, which was used for decades for exercises.
Did not replace foam at the same time as other bases
The Greenlandic environmental authorities inform Politiken that they have not been aware of whether PFAS has been used at Pituffik, but they suspect that it has happened, as “in many countries” it has been used in, for example, fire-fighting foam.
In 2017, it emerged that almost all US military bases had replaced the fire-fighting foam that contained PFAS. However, Pituffik was one of the few bases where this did not happen, Politiken writes.
The newspaper has asked the US military when exactly it switched to PFAS-free foam at the military base in Greenland, but it has not received an answer to the inquiry. An unnamed source at the base says the replacement foam arrived “a couple of years ago”.
Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as the Thule base, is currently the United States’ only military base in Greenland. It is located on the northwest coast of Greenland.
Previously, the USA had 17 of this kind in Greenland.
